I imagine the best bangs for the bucks are:
Get rid of the oversize tires, put something skinnier than stock on and run high pressures. I doubt your wife approaches the limits of your current tires and skinnier tires don't aqua plane as easily. My tracker came with 205/70R15 uniroyal tiger paws(which are downright scary in rain or snow, don't get them) I don't really see why you couldn't go a size thinner.
Switch to all synthetic oil in the driveline, I have the 4 banger and in the cold mornings I can really feel all that thick 75W90 oil dragging before it gets up to temperature.
Manual hubs on the front, I've read its worth 1 or 2 mpg here.
Check your cooling fan but it shouldn't be on all the time. Only when needed.
One other thing is adjusting the timing, I don't know specifically if you can on your engine but advancing it slightly lets the engine make a bit more power at the lower rpm range. Listent for knock though, all engines will pull timing with knock but I doubt the sensor/computer is not really designed to always be adjusting the timing. I'm sure it will not fine tune the timing, just pull it back to something very safe and then after a while go back to normal until it senses knock again.
I doubt the exhaust will have any benefit.
Probably if you do the math, over 5 years it would be better for you to even give away your GV and buy a 3 year old toyota echo for that kind of commute... Real world I think they get 40mpg on the highway, and are dirt cheap and don't break down.
I have a 50 mile round trip commute and average about 26mpg with my tracker in the summer, in the winter with snowtires this drops to 23mpg. This is with the 4 cyl, manual trans, no air conditioning, normal oil in everything, stock tire size, no mods, clean air filter.
Ian
Last edited by IndyIan : 03-31-2008 at 11:12 AM.
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